A man sits near the entrance to Kamar Kulagh, just outside Herat and near the border with Iran. The wars and upheavals in Afghanistan over the past three decades have contributed to the widespread use of drugs.

Zahra, who goes by her first name only, used to make carpets and worked as a maid. But her sister introduced her to drugs, and now both are heroin addicts. Zahra also has a 10-year-old daughter who is addicted.

Saleh (from left), 25, Mohammed Ibrahim, 31, and Nisar Ahmed, 23, sit in a drug rehabilitation center on the outskirts of Herat. Opium grown in Afghanistan has long been smuggled through Herat on its way to Iran and to the West. Now Herat has many drug addicts of its own.

A self-proclaimed poet and scholar, Haji Ismatullah blows smoke out after taking a hit of crystal meth. He says he turned to drugs after his wife and kids were killed in a car accident.

David P. GilkeyNPR

Herat is one of the most graceful cities in Afghanistan. Its traditions go back to the Persian empire, with its exquisite blue and green glass, and its thriving poetry scene.

Now Herat is struggling with a darker side: drug addiction at a higher rate than almost anywhere else in the country.

In a dusty ravine on the outskirts of the city, Ahmad, a scruffy 20-year-old, is striking a match to inhale heroin.

It's a simple act he repeats throughout his day — heating a dark slab of heroin paste smeared on a bit of foil so he can smoke it.

Ahmad is one of hundreds of addicts who have turned a dumping ground for building material into a village. A drug village.

They used chunks of cement and tarps to honeycomb the ravine with what look like stone igloos.

Ahmad's mother, Zahra, leans against some rocks in front of their place. Her flat, gold eyes peer at us from beneath a plaid veil as she tells her story

"I used to weave carpets and also worked as a maid," she says. "Then my husband got cancer and died."

Zahra's life spiraled downward, hitting bottom when her sister-in-law returned from Iran and offered her heroin.

Now, Zahra says, "I can't do anything except beg on the street."

We pull back a red cloth to find another woman, Zahra's sister, blinking up into the light. In the center of this tiny space is a cooking area — not for food, but for heroin.

There's also a small figure moaning and moving restlessly under a filthy blue burka.

"That's my daughter," says Zahra.

She's 10, and she's hooked on heroin too.

How did such a young girl become addicted?

"When we had my sister-in-law living with us, she was addicted," says Zahra. "I would go out to other homes to do housekeeping. And my little girl Laila used to cry a lot. So my sister-in-law gave the child opium to calm her down — that's when she became an addict."

Zahra says her daughter has already gone through rehab at a clinic in the city.But back in this drug village, the 10-year-old became addicted once again.

Few Resources To Combat Drugs

In a white-tiled office, Dr. Ezmaray Hassin runs several clinics in Herat, and he says one of them serves children as young as 4. There are an estimated 70,000 drug users here now, he says.

"There's no doubt that Afghanistan is one of the largest producers of poppy, but historically they have never been drug users," Dr. Hassin says. But more than three decades of war, which has displaced millions of Afghans, has created all sorts of upheavals, he says.

"A lot of people travel to the neighboring countries, and they got to know about narcotics and they become addicted," he adds. "And the one country that's closest to Herat is Iran."

Iran has long had one of the highest rates of drug addiction in the world. Heroin is widely used in Iran, but recently there has been a dramatic rise in the use of crystal meth.

Sitting on a bed in this clinic in Herat is Saleh, 25, who tells a story we hear again and again, from migrants and refugees who've returned from Iran with addictions.

A few years ago, he crossed the border into Iran to look for work.

"I was in Iran and I was digging wells," he begins. "Then my legs would really, really hurt, really bad. Basically it started with opium first to treat my legs — to kill the pain. And then over time I went to heroin. Then the problem became that every time I did not use heroin my legs even would hurt more. So I had to use."

Relatively speaking, Saleh is among the lucky ones. There are just 250 beds devoted to drug treatment in all of Herat.

The city's top counternarcotics officer is Faquil Gul Amini, whose office in the center of Herat is protected by trucks with mounted machine guns.

Amini's resources are limited, and the challenge is growing with the arrival of a drug he'd never seen before a couple of years ago: crystal meth, which is known in Persian as shisheh, or glass.

Amini says he has just raided meth labs in Herat and arrested a Breaking Bad kind of guy from Iran. But he has no illusions about the magnitude of the battle he faces.

"I'm afraid to say when it comes to the list of priorities for the government to deal with, the issue of drug addicts, I'm afraid to say, it's below zero," he said.

Which is why this village outside the city is full of addicts. On a hot day you can see a constant flow of men walking up and down on a path crunchy with broken glass.

They are going nowhere.

Those who are on crystal meth are easy to spot. One we encounter has the air of a 60-something hipster. A trim gray beard. A black leather jacket. A tattoo on his hand spelling love.

His name is Haji Ismatullah, and the young men clustered around him call out, "He's a writer."

As evidence, he opens a notebook filled with elegant Persian script in red and black.

"I say poetry for the people here," he says. "For the pain of the people."

Ismatullah says he began using crystal meth after his wife and three children were killed in a car accident.

"My heart was hurting a lot after the accident when I lost my family," he says. "Some people told me if you take meth it makes you forget things. And there's a lot in Herat, so I took it."

For the first few months, it did help, he says. But, he adds with a cackle, "After that, it does not help me because it's not a good friend."

Still, Ismatullah would like some meth right now.

As we walk with him to his place, a young woman who carries herself like a dancer comes toward us. The men see her and laugh. She has lost her mind, she's crazy, they say.

She does in fact call herself by the name of a famous Iranian singer and seems to think she's on stage. Decked out in a magenta cape, turquoise beads and a turban, she tosses her head dramatically and with a kind of wild beauty.

Then she spins away, just as we reach the dwelling of Ismatullah, which resembles a stone igloo.

He goes inside the tiny place and smokes crystal meth in a glass pipe.

Afterward, he's ready to wander again, so we walk to the top of a hill to a makeshift cemetery. He takes us to a fresh grave marked by a small mound of rocks. There lies his friend Baluchi, who died two days before.

It's a moment that brings to mind a question we put earlier to a man named Mohammed, who has been residing in this drug village for six months. I asked him how he sees his future. "Look at my life, this life," he said. "The end for us is death. That's what we're waiting for."

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

Years ago, in Afghanistan, I rode a horse-drawn cab through the streets of Herat. The horse was draped in silver bells and red pom-poms that danced, as they moved like roses. Herat is Afghanistan's most graceful city. It's known for exquisite green and blue glass and its many poets, traditions dating to the Persian Empire. Smuggling is also a long tradition.

Opium travels through Herat across the nearby border, into Iran. Along the way, it's made into heroin headed for Europe. In the past few years, that flow has reversed - not the drugs, but the addicts are flowing back: Afghan migrants and refugees, returning to Herat, bringing with them a scourge of drug use.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)

ZAHRA: (Foreign language spoken)

AHMAD: So, we have these foil papers? We roll it up...

MONTAGNE: So the heroin's in the foil.

In a dusty ravine on the outskirts of town, a scruffy 20-year-old named Ahmad is striking a match to inhale heroin.

(SOUNDBITE OF INHALATION, COUGHING)

MONTAGNE: This ravine Ahmad calls home has long been a dumping ground for refuse from building sites in Herat. Now it's also a drug village. Hundreds of addicts have dug out small caves to use as dwellings. They honeycomb the hills.

Ahmad's mother, Zahra, leans against some rocks in front of their place, as she tells her story.

ZAHRA: (Foreign language spoken)

MONTAGNE: I used to weave carpets, she says, and also worked as a maid. Then my husband got cancer and died.

Zahra's life spiraled down, hitting bottom when her sister-in-law, newly returned from Iran, offered her heroin.

ZAHRA: (Through translator) Now I can't do anything except beg on the street.

MONTAGNE: We pull back from the entrance to her place a red cloth, to find another woman - Zahra's sister - blinking up into light. In the center of this tiny space is a cooking area not for food, for heroin. There's also a small figure moaning and moving restlessly under a filthy blue burqa.

ZAHRA: (Through translator) When we had my sister-in-law living with us, she was addicted. I would go out to other homes to do housekeeping. And my little girl, Laila, used to cry a lot. So, my sister-in-law gave her opium to calm her down. That's when Laila became an addict.

(SOUNDBITE OF A CROWD)

MONTAGNE: In a sparkling clean, white-tiled office, we meet Dr. Ezmaray Hassin. He runs several clinics in Herat. And he says, yes, one serves children as young as four. There are an estimated 70,000 drug users here now, mostly men - he says, a huge shock to the culture.

DR. EZMARAY HASSIN: (Through translator) There's no doubt that Afghanistan is one of the largest producers of poppy, but historically, they have never been drug users. But because of the upheavals of the last 30 years or the wars, and also the displacements that happen, a lot of people travel to the neighboring countries, and they got to know about narcotics. And the one country that's closest to Herat is Iran.

MONTAGNE: Which is bad news, because Iran has long had the highest rate of drug addiction in the world. The drug of choice is heroin, and recently, there's been a dramatic rise in the use of crystal meth.

Sitting on a bed in this clinic in Herat is 25-year-old Saleh. He tells a story we will hear again and again. A few years ago, he crossed the border, looking for work.

SALEH: (Through translator) So I was in Iran, and I was digging wells. Then my legs would really, really hurt bad. Basically, it started with opium first, to kill the pain. And then, over time, I went to heroin. Then the problem became that every time I did not use heroin, my legs even would hurt more. So I had to use it.

MONTAGNE: Saleh is one of the lucky ones. There are 250 beds devoted to drug treatment in all of Herat with its tens of thousands of heroin addicts.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)

MONTAGNE: In the center of town is the office of the man in charge of fighting the drug war in Herat. To reach Faquil Gul Amini, one of Herat's top counter-narcotics officers, we pass trucks equipped with mounted machine guns. And his challenge is growing with the arrival of a drug he'd never seen before a couple of years ago: crystal meth, known in Persian as shisheh - glass.

Amini told us he just raided meth labs in Herat and arrested, he says a "Breaking Bad" kind of guy from Iran. I put this to him.

This government is facing a lot of challenges, I mean, from an insurgency to a struggling economy. How high on the priority list do you think these addicts are for the government of Afghanistan?

FAQUIL GUL AMINI: (Through translator) I'm afraid to say when it comes to the list of priority for the government to deal with the issue of drug addicts, I'm afraid to say it's below zero.

MONTAGNE: Which is why there is a village full of addicts.

(SOUNDBITE OF CRUNCHING GLASS)

MONTAGNE: On a hot day, you can see a constant flow of men walking up and down on a path covered in broken glass, and going nowhere. Those who are on crystal meth are easy to spot. They're wired.

One we encounter has the air of a 60-something hipster: trim grey beard, a black leather jacket, a tattoo on his hand spelling Love. His name is Haji Ismatullah and the young men clustered around him call out, he's a writer.

Are you a writer?

HAJI ISMATULLAH: Yeah. (Through translator) A poet.

MONTAGNE: Poet.

At this, he opens up a notebook filled with elegant Persian script in red and black.

ISMATULLAH: (Through translator) I say this poetry for the people here, the pain of these people.

MONTAGNE: Haji Ismatullah carries his own pain. He says he began using crystal meth after his wife and three children were killed in a car accident.

ISMATULLAH: (Through translator) My heart was hurting a lot after the accident when I lost my family. So some people told me that if you take meth, it makes you forget things.

MONTAGNE: And did you forget? Did it help?

ISMATULLAH: Yeah, for one month, two months, three months it helped me. And after, it not help me because it's not a good friend, you see.

(LAUGHTER)

MONTAGNE: However, Haji Ismatullah would like some meth right now. So we walk with to his place. And as we walk, a young woman who carries herself like a dancer comes toward us. The men see her and laugh. She's lost her mind, they say, she's crazy.

She does in fact, call herself the name of a famous Iranian singer and seems to think she's onstage. Decked out in a magenta cape, turquoise beads, and a turban, she tosses her head dramatically and with a kind of wild beauty. She spins away just as we reach Haji Ismatullah's stone igloo.

ISMATULLAH: This is my house. And you want to see?

MONTAGNE: Very small for two people?

ISMATULLAH: Yeah, for two people it's very small. I smoke this now, you see.

MONTAGNE: So that glass pipe, or that pipe with the glass ball on the end, that's crystal meth.

ISMATULLAH: Yeah. Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

MONTAGNE: Having gotten high, Haji Ismatullah is ready to wander again, so we walk to the top of a hill to a makeshift cemetery. He takes us to a fresh grave marked by a small mound of rocks. There lies his friend Baluchi. ...

And what did your friend that you just buried, what did he die of?

ISMATULLAH: He's sick. He's sick. He told me, this night my last night and by morning time, some people come from my house told me, Haji, Haji you come, Beluchi's die. Sure. Right, he's die.

INSKEEP: It's a moment that brings to mind a question we put earlier to a man named Mohammed. Six months he'd lived there high on heroin. And I asked him, what is your future? He replied, look at my life, this life. The end for us is death. That's what we're waiting for.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MONTAGNE: Tomorrow, we return to Istalif, a center of ceramics for hundreds of years in Afghanistan we're potters are once again prospering.